


Pillows

by kiminokoe



Category: Kamen Rider W (Double)
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3946528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiminokoe/pseuds/kiminokoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Shoutarou is a little too protective of his partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pillows

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first Kamen Rider fic, written and posted to my old Livejournal back in 2010. It's really just pointless pseudo-fluff with a wannabe-crack ending.

Shoutarou pushes open the door of their secret hideout and descends the spiral staircase with a yawn. The room is too bright for his sleep-filled eyes and he blinks and tries to shield his face from the lights with his hand. He climbs the small staircase up to the platform he knows Philip is on without even having to look. Unfortunately, in his sleepy state, he stumbles up the last two steps and before he can catch himself, he crashes against a warm, slim form that waivers only slightly against his weight.

His eyes snap open just before the dim glow surrounding Philip's body disappears and his partner looks up at him, confused.

“Shoutarou?”

The detective clears his throat audibly and stands up straight, putting his arm loosely around Philip's shoulders, doing his best to cover up the fact that he just tripped and fell up the stairs.

Philip doesn't look convinced.

“What are you doing up at this hour?” Shoutarou asks, unable to suppress another yawn. He already knows the answer before it passes Philip's lips.

“Research,” they both say in unison.

“So,” Shoutarou continues with a sigh. He crosses the room to examine the whiteboards on the other side. Most of the writing is not in Japanese and even the Japanese is so jumbled and seemingly random that Shoutarou can't make much sense of it. “What is it this time? Takoyaki? The Eiffel Tower? Kittens?”

Philip opens his mouth to answer, but Shoutarou cuts him off.

“Well, whatever it is, you can finish in the morning.”

“But...”

“You need to sleep, Philip.” He ignores the deep pout on Philip's lips and opens one of the lockers in the corner of the room, pulling out a set of dark green, satin pajamas with small, white polka dots – the match to his own black set. “Hurry up and get changed and go to bed.” He holds out the pajamas in his outstretched hand and waits as Philip sulkily crosses the room and takes them from him. He smiles and ruffles Philip's hair playfully before he walks toward the exit, trusting his partner to do as he's told.

He's almost to the stairs when a quiet, pained hiss pulls his attention back into the room. Philip is standing with his back turned toward him, his yellow duster in a pile on the floor and his green and white striped shirt pulled halfway over his head, exposing the milky pale skin of his back and the many bruises that cover it.

“Bruises?” Shoutarou questions under his breath. Once the shirt was completely off, Shoutarou notices even more dark marks running up and down Philip's long, skinny arms. Some of the bruises are faded and merely a hint of what they once were. A few are dark and angry, freshly planted on soft skin.

With long strides, Shoutarou walks back to where his partner is standing and grabs his shoulder, spinning Philip around to face him.

“How did you get these?” he asks angrily. Philip doesn't seem to understand what he's referring to so he grasps one of the boy's wrists and pulls his arm in front of his face. “Why are you covered in bruises?”

“Ah,” comes the nonchalant reply. “I fell,” Philip continues with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

Shoutarou cringes inwardly. He recalls a time when he was still just an apprentice and a new client came into the agency wearing oversized sunglasses with her hair styled in such a way to hide the dark, ugly bruise marring the left side of her beautiful face. When asked about it, she, too, had said she'd fallen. It had been a lie, of course, and an easy lie to detect. She had been the victim of her husbands violent behavior and, at the time, it broke Shoutarou's heart to see such a kind person hurt in such a way.

The memory makes him tighten his grip on Philip's wrist.

“Shoutarou?” Philip is frowning at him.

But who would hurt Philip like this? Other than the obvious answer of the Museum, Shoutarou can't think of anyone. He may not like the other man much, but Shoutarou trusts Terui enough not to resort to such things. And sure, Akiko has a violent streak a mile wide, but she never hits too hard and she always aims for the head. Philip hasn't been outside the agency often enough recently to meet anyone else.

He gazes sternly at Philip, gripping the boys shoulders firmly. “Tell me the truth, Philip. Who did this to you?”

Philip gives him the look he usually only gives Akiko; the look that says, “I'll humor you.”

Philip brings his fingers to his lips as if in thought before he finally speaks. “The floor.”

“Huh?”

“Your desk. Probably that fence when we were out yesterday. Oh, and this one,” he says enthusiastically, pointing to a large, but fading bruise on his left shoulder, “is from last week. Aki-chan couldn't catch me in time.”

“Akiko?”

“But it's mostly just the floor,” Philip finishes. He waits for Shoutarou's response, but the older man still seems confused.

“Shoutarou, are you forgetting that when we transform into Double, I pass out? I'm usually not near something soft to land on.”

“I... I didn't forget,” he lies.

“If someone was hurting me, Fang would come to help. And besides, I would tell you if I was in trouble.”

Shoutarou's worries aren't completely gone, but he relents with a sigh. He steps away and watches while Philip continues to get changed into pajamas, averting his gaze when Philip's long, thin fingers start to undo the ties at his waist.

“Hey, Philip, why didn't you tell me about the bruises?”

Philip shuffles up next to him, hems of his pajama pants dragging at his feet He's doing up the buttons of his top, one by one. “It didn't seem important.”

“Of course it's important!” Shoutarou yells and Philip snaps his head up to meet the man's eyes. “You're my partner. If you're hurt, I want to know about it.” All the seriousness of his statement is lost when a long yawn escapes his lips.

Philip smiles. “Let's go to bed, Shoutarou.”

 

Shoutarou is tucked under the blankets of his bed for less than an hour before he gives up on falling asleep. He gets up and heads into the office, where Philip is curled up on his side in his own bed in the small nook in the corner of the room. Philip is sound asleep.

He knows that a few bruises aren't that big of a deal. He knows that it's just a part of the job and if Philip isn't bothered by it, he shouldn't be either, but as he watches the sleeping form of his partner, of the boy he's been given the task of protecting, Shoutarou can't help but feel he should do something. He makes up his mind quickly and sets to work, digging through his desk drawer for his tape measure and his phonebook. Shoutarou then prepares a pot of coffee. He has a long night ahead of him.

 

When Akiko arrives at the Narumi Detective Agency the following morning, she lets out an astonished scream at the door. And then the anger sets in. “Shoutarou-kun!” she yells. She steps hesitantly into the room and, when she's sure of the surface below her feet, she stomps angrily toward Shoutarou's desk, only to trip and fall forward as the soft texture as the floor gives way under her.

From this angle, she can see that Shoutarou isn't at his desk. She can also see that the desk, as well as all the other furniture in the room, now has soft, padded edges. She takes a moment to look around the room.

The floor is covered from wall to wall with a thick layer of large pillows. The pillows are piled higher near the walls.

The door to the hideout is open a crack and Akiko crawls toward it, attempting to stand again only as she opens the door fully.

The inside of the hideout is no different than the office. The metal platforms that serve as the second floor are covered with pillows. The ground floor is the same, though the layer of pillows is a bit thicker in the middle.

Akiko carefully makes her way down the spiral staircase, which is also now padded with soft material, and then up the steps to where Philip is writing on his whiteboards. 

“Hi, Aki-chan.” Philip smiles in greeting.

“Good morning, Philip-kun!” she says cheerily. A few short seconds later, the grin is off her face and the angry scowl she had been wearing earlier returns. “Shoutarou-kun!” she yells, pulling a green slipper out of her bag. Akiko storms toward where Shoutarou is sitting on the small couch on the other side of the room, but, again, she trips over a pillow and falls to her hands and knees.

Philip is at her side immediately, pulling her to her feet. He seems apologetic, but she would've guessed that this wasn't his doing anyway.

She points her slipper accusingly at Shoutarou. “What did you do?!” she shrieks. 

Shoutarou stands, himself a little unsure on the soft ground at his feet. “Philip was getting hurt when we transform into Double, so I decided to do some rearranging around here. This way, when he passes out, he won't get injured.”

“Rearranging?! Shoutarou-kun, I can't run a business like this!”

“You also can't run a business when your employee is unable to work due to injuries he sustained on the job.”

Akiko's jaw drops open and she looks from Philip to Shoutarou and back.

Philip just shrugs.

Akiko turns and glares at Shoutarou again, her slipper gripped tightly in her hand. “How did you pay for all of this?!”

“This is a legitimate business expense, Akiko.”

She releases a loud, frustrated groan and storms – slowly so as not to lose her footing again – out of the room.

Shoutarou smiles and follows her out to the office, pausing at the top of the spiral staircase when he hears Philip's voice from the platform behind him.

“Shoutarou,” Philip calls softly, his fingertips tapping against his bottom lip. “What about if I'm not in the agency when we transform?”

The older man turns to his partner, eyes wide with something akin to fear. He hadn't thought of that possibility.

“I'll take care of it,” he finally says with a reassuring smile.

 

At his desk, Shoutarou flips open the phonebook and starts dialing the number he had called the previous night. He has _a lot_ of pillows to order.


End file.
